Cultivating Talent Among Young Nebraskans

Jan. 16, 2018, 6:45 a.m. ·

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What takes a kid from being an average competitor to a national champion? Two University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers look to find out by identifying Nebraska high schoolers with exceptional talent in rodeo, baton twirling, swimming and diving. By interviewing the students, their coaches and parents, they learned more about what fosters talent development. NET News talked with Ken Kiewra, UNL professor of educational psychology and Amanda Witte, project manager at the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, about their work.


NET NEWS: Could you briefly summarize the study you've done looking at talented Nebraska youths?

KEN KIEWRA: This was a study to try to find out how some young people get to be so good so fast. And in our previous work, Amanda and I have looked at youth across the country in various domains such as chess and baton twirling and spelling and writing and swimming. But this time we thought we'd look in our own backyard and see how it is that Nebraska youth become so talented because I think we knew that Nebraska's not known as a hotbed for talent development. So with that in mind we sought to find some of the most talented people in Nebraska and to do that we contacted principals throughout the state and asked them to recommend or nominate people who they thought were highly talented. And we also checked websites, the internet and so forth to find some talented people.

NET NEWS: How are you defining talent?

AMANDA WITTE: We used kind of an open definition of talent. So when we invited principals to nominate highly talented students we kept it pretty broad and we included a variety of talent domains. So including things like athletics but also baton twirling or music. So really just people who are at the top of their field in whatever domain that happens to be.

NET NEWS: So have some level of mastery and national recognition or state recognition at least?

KEN KIEWRA: Yes, I think that's true. We were looking for people who had state, national or world recognition and the people that ended up in our study had those qualifications.

Amanda Witte, project manager at the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools.

Ken Kiewra, UNL professor of educational psychology.

(Courtesy photos)

NET NEWS: So what did you find, what are the unifying characteristics among these young Nebraskans?

AMANDA WITTE: Several things come to mind that we noticed as strong themes across all of the youth. Hard work is one. Having really terrific expert coaches. Having a strong sense of purpose and motivation. And then also all of the great work and support that they receive from their parents.

NET NEWS: How big or how essential is the role of the parents in this?

KEN KIEWRA: I think our major finding was just how involved parents were in all aspects of talent development. The parents, in many ways, helped supply the motivation, they provide the child with early exposure to the talent domain. They do so many managerial sorts of things like getting them to lessons and competitions, practicing with them, paying for all these sorts of things. They're in it every step of the way.

AMANDA WITTE: Every single one of our participants, I think they would also say they couldn't have done it without their parents, that they were critical from the very beginning stages, introducing them to the talent area, then from logistics but also emotional support. The parents modeled hard work, and learning from failures or watching what they do and then learning how they can improve on it.

NET NEWS: Do you think that any child, given the factors that you mentioned, parental support and things like that, can achieve this level of talent or mastery of some given ability, or are there kids that are just more likely to excel in certain areas than others?

KEN KIEWRA: I believe that there are certain biological or genetic proclivities that allow one to probably excel more in some domains than others. One of the basketball players that we interviewed in our study was 6'5" and had hands the size of garbage can covers. He was in a good position to be strong in basketball. But having said that, while there's probably a need for some sort of biological match and environmental stimulation, I would say virtually anybody can reach high levels of talent or expertise if the conditions are right. And the conditions are the things we mentioned previously, such as having a strong passion, having that early experience, having great coaching, having parents with you every step of the way. If those things are all in sync, if all those things are firing, there's really no reason why any child can't become exceptionally talented.

AMANDA WITTE: One of the things we found was that parents did a nice job of matching activities to their children's predispositions. So finding something, exposing them to a wide variety of activities and then noticing the things that they were drawn to and that they were particularly prone to be good at.

Ken Kiewra and Amanda Witte also produced a documentary about these students called “Prodigies of the Prairie.”

NET NEWS: Do you think there's a trend in parenting or culture nowadays to emphasize a kid's ability in one particular aspect as opposed to say, being more of an all-American kid that plays all the sports, does music, have you seen, in your research, a focus on developing one particular skill?

AMANDA WITTE: Yes and no. A lot of our participants will narrow down their interests at a relatively young age and then pursue one particular interest in order to become a real expert in that area. At a certain point there just isn't time to do all of the other things at the same level. Now having said that, I would say many of our participants also excel in other areas. So many of our athletes were also excellent students. There does seem to be some sort of requirement for specializing at a relatively young age but maybe after they've had some exposure to a variety of different activities.

KEN KIEWRA: And from the family's standpoint it's kind of a value judgement. Do you want your child to be well-rounded or do you want them to specialize? And that's really a decision that the child and the family need to make. From my experience, the ones who are truly expert, who are truly talented are the ones who tend to specialize early and focus their energy in one talent domain.

NET NEWS: So given what we've talked about with the large role of parents in cultivating their kid's talent, are there concerns about over-parenting or too much involvement or devoting too many resources or too much time to one kid in a family?

KEN KIEWRA: If you look at some of the tendencies that are occurring in society now we have the Tiger moms who are pushing their children. Or we have the helicopter parents who are hovering above their children trying to guide their every move. And these types of parents have come under incredible criticism. And in many ways rightly so, but I think that's frightened some parents away from being involved with their children. I would recommend to parents that they not worry about those things and that they become highly involved with their children. The families that we've examined have grown very close because of the pursuit of talent development. There's been incredible enjoyment and satisfaction, not only on the part of the child but on the part of the family. The family becomes very passionate about being a swimming family or a tennis family or a chess family.

AMANDA WITTE: A lot of our families and our parents in particular, they make these decisions together as a team. And they say, if you are in, we're also in. If this is something you want to pursue, we'll be with you every step of the way. So it always seems to be the case that it's sort of a team effort, not one leading the other but they're together in it as partners.

NET NEWS: What do these findings tell us about parenting more broadly? Are there any larger takeaways you can pull from the research you've done?

KEN KIEWRA: I would say expose your children early on to a number of different activities and possibilities and see what they gravitate to. And when they do gravitate to something, feed that interest. Read to them, take them to shows and plays or musical events if that's their interest, and be alongside them, helping them to gain experience. Don't be a pusher. If the child's going to develop talent it's going to really be up to the child to ultimately drive the talent bus. The parent can help steer, supply a little fuel here and there, but in the end it's gotta be the child's decision. So my recommendation would be to see what your child likes and feed those interests. And the other thing I'd say is that we think of talent as a continuum. And any child can be moved along that continuum in a positive way through experiences and interactions with parents. Not everybody has to play Carnegie Hall to succeed when it comes to talent. Any movement along that talent continuum is something positive and enjoyable.